Farnham's Freehold
Encyclopedia
Farnham's Freehold is a science fiction
novel
set in the near future by Robert A. Heinlein
. A serialised version, edited by Frederik Pohl
, appeared in Worlds of If magazine (July, August, October 1964). The complete version was published in novel
form by G.P. Putnam
later in 1964.
Farnham's Freehold is a post-apocalyptic tale, as the setup for the story is a direct hit by a nuclear weapon
, which sends a fallout
shelter containing a man, his wife, son, daughter, daughter's friend, and black domestic servant into the future. Heinlein drew on his own experience in building a fallout shelter
under his own house in Colorado Springs, Colorado
in the 1960s.
The book is popular with survivalist
groups as it combines the civil engineering
and physics
of fallout shelter survival with the social dynamics of "lifeboat rules," or autocratic authority under extreme conditions, a theme further explored in depth in The Number of the Beast
. To paraphrase Mr. Farnham, "How do you know who is the officer in the lifeboat? The one with the gun."
After several apparently nuclear explosions rock the shelter, Hugh and Barbara become romantically involved; after their copulation, the largest explosion of all hits the shelter. With only minor injuries, and with their bottled oxygen running low, the group decides to ensure that they can leave the shelter when necessary; upon exiting through an emergency tunnel, they find themselves in a completely undamaged, semi-tropical region apparently uninhabited by humans or other sentient creatures. Several of the group think the final explosion somehow forced them into an alternate dimension.
The group strives to stay alive as a pioneer family, with Hugh as the leader (despite friction between Hugh and Duke). Karen announces that she is pregnant, and had returned home the night of the attack to tell her parents; Barbara also announces that she is pregnant (although she does not mention that her pregnancy resulted from her romantic encounter with Hugh during the attack). Karen eventually dies during her labor, due to complications, and her infant daughter follows the next day.
Grace, whose sanity has been challenged by all these events, demands that Barbara be forced from the group or she will leave. Duke convinces Hugh that he will go with Grace to ensure her safety, but before they can leave, a large ship appears overhead. The group is taken captive by people of clear African ancestry, but is spared execution when Joe intervenes by conversation with their captives' leader in French.
The group finds that it has not been transported to another world, but instead is in the distant future of their own world. A decadent but technologically advanced African culture keeps either uneducated or castrated whites as slaves. Each of the characters adapts to the sudden black/white role reversal in different and sometimes shocking ways. In the end, Hugh and Barbara fail to adjust to the new situation and attempt to escape, but are captured. Rather than execute them, Ponse (the "Lord Protector" of the house to which they have become slaves) asks them to volunteer (though they speculate that if they didn't volunteer they would have been forced to anyway) for a time-travel experiment to send them back to their own time.
They return just prior to the original nuclear attack, and flee in Barbara's car. As they drive, they realize that while Barbara had driven a car with an automatic transmission, this car - the same car in every respect but one - has a manual transmission, and Farnham deduces that the time-travel experiment worked, but sent them into an alternative universe
. They survive the war, then spend the rest of their lives trying to make sure the future they experienced does not come to pass.
, another novel by Heinlein, deal extensively with issues of race, but whereas Sixth Column is perceived as racist
by some readers, Farnham's Freehold depends for its impact on twisting the racial roles: in a future dominated by people of African ancestry, a culture technologically advanced enough to develop time travel
also practices race-based slavery
and institutionalized cannibalism
.
Some have argued that the portrayal of the black ruling caste as cannibalistic, polygynous tyrants with a preference for Caucasian women uses most of the available racist stereotypes about Africans and African-Americans. Another interpretation posits that the cannibalism and sexual predation of the dark-skinned masters is allegorical, representing the way that black slaves were historically taken advantage of by their masters. This is similar to the "Durham's Pure Leaf Lard" theme in Upton Sinclair
's The Jungle
. Proponents of the allegory theory point out that in the second half of the story, Farnham describes a place in the West Indies where the blacks are cultured and sophisticated, and whites are feckless and shiftless, and that Heinlein then plays out a traditional slave narrative with Farnham as the narrator. From this point of view, the story is not about Africans and Caucasians, but rather about masters and slaves, regardless of race. It is also interesting to note Farnham's second in command was not his son, but their black domestic servant. This servant, Joseph, was also going to college to become an accountant, and was also described as the best bridge player of the group.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
set in the near future by Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
. A serialised version, edited by Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
, appeared in Worlds of If magazine (July, August, October 1964). The complete version was published in novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
form by G.P. Putnam
G. P. Putnam's Sons
G. P. Putnam's Sons was a major United States book publisher based in New York City, New York. Since 1996, it has been an imprint of the Penguin Group.-History:...
later in 1964.
Farnham's Freehold is a post-apocalyptic tale, as the setup for the story is a direct hit by a nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
, which sends a fallout
Nuclear fallout
Fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and shock wave have passed. It commonly refers to the radioactive dust and ash created when a nuclear weapon explodes...
shelter containing a man, his wife, son, daughter, daughter's friend, and black domestic servant into the future. Heinlein drew on his own experience in building a fallout shelter
Fallout shelter
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War....
under his own house in Colorado Springs, Colorado
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Colorado Springs is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and most populous city of El Paso County, Colorado, United States. Colorado Springs is located in South-Central Colorado, in the southern portion of the state. It is situated on Fountain Creek and is located south of the Colorado...
in the 1960s.
The book is popular with survivalist
Survivalism
Survivalism is a movement of individuals or groups who are actively preparing for future possible disruptions in local, regional, national, or international social or political order...
groups as it combines the civil engineering
Civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...
and physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
of fallout shelter survival with the social dynamics of "lifeboat rules," or autocratic authority under extreme conditions, a theme further explored in depth in The Number of the Beast
The Number of the Beast (novel)
The Number of the Beast is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein published in 1980. The first edition featured a cover and interior illustrations by Richard M. Powers...
. To paraphrase Mr. Farnham, "How do you know who is the officer in the lifeboat? The one with the gun."
Plot
Hugh Farnham, a middle-aged man, holds a bridge club party for Grace (Hugh's wife, an alcoholic), Duke (Hugh's son, a law graduate), Karen (Hugh's daughter, and a college student), and Barbara (Karen's sorority sister). During the bridge game, Duke (Hugh's son) berates him for frightening his mother with preparations for a possible nuclear attack by the Russians. When the attack actually occurs, the family, along with Joe (Hugh and Grace's African American servant), retreat to the fallout shelter below the house.After several apparently nuclear explosions rock the shelter, Hugh and Barbara become romantically involved; after their copulation, the largest explosion of all hits the shelter. With only minor injuries, and with their bottled oxygen running low, the group decides to ensure that they can leave the shelter when necessary; upon exiting through an emergency tunnel, they find themselves in a completely undamaged, semi-tropical region apparently uninhabited by humans or other sentient creatures. Several of the group think the final explosion somehow forced them into an alternate dimension.
The group strives to stay alive as a pioneer family, with Hugh as the leader (despite friction between Hugh and Duke). Karen announces that she is pregnant, and had returned home the night of the attack to tell her parents; Barbara also announces that she is pregnant (although she does not mention that her pregnancy resulted from her romantic encounter with Hugh during the attack). Karen eventually dies during her labor, due to complications, and her infant daughter follows the next day.
Grace, whose sanity has been challenged by all these events, demands that Barbara be forced from the group or she will leave. Duke convinces Hugh that he will go with Grace to ensure her safety, but before they can leave, a large ship appears overhead. The group is taken captive by people of clear African ancestry, but is spared execution when Joe intervenes by conversation with their captives' leader in French.
The group finds that it has not been transported to another world, but instead is in the distant future of their own world. A decadent but technologically advanced African culture keeps either uneducated or castrated whites as slaves. Each of the characters adapts to the sudden black/white role reversal in different and sometimes shocking ways. In the end, Hugh and Barbara fail to adjust to the new situation and attempt to escape, but are captured. Rather than execute them, Ponse (the "Lord Protector" of the house to which they have become slaves) asks them to volunteer (though they speculate that if they didn't volunteer they would have been forced to anyway) for a time-travel experiment to send them back to their own time.
They return just prior to the original nuclear attack, and flee in Barbara's car. As they drive, they realize that while Barbara had driven a car with an automatic transmission, this car - the same car in every respect but one - has a manual transmission, and Farnham deduces that the time-travel experiment worked, but sent them into an alternative universe
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
. They survive the war, then spend the rest of their lives trying to make sure the future they experienced does not come to pass.
Themes and criticism
Both Farnham's Freehold and Sixth ColumnSixth Column
Sixth Column, also known under the title The Day After Tomorrow, is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, based on a story by editor John W. Campbell, and set in a United States that has been conquered by the PanAsians, a combination of Chinese and Japanese...
, another novel by Heinlein, deal extensively with issues of race, but whereas Sixth Column is perceived as racist
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
by some readers, Farnham's Freehold depends for its impact on twisting the racial roles: in a future dominated by people of African ancestry, a culture technologically advanced enough to develop time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
also practices race-based slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
and institutionalized cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
.
Some have argued that the portrayal of the black ruling caste as cannibalistic, polygynous tyrants with a preference for Caucasian women uses most of the available racist stereotypes about Africans and African-Americans. Another interpretation posits that the cannibalism and sexual predation of the dark-skinned masters is allegorical, representing the way that black slaves were historically taken advantage of by their masters. This is similar to the "Durham's Pure Leaf Lard" theme in Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair
Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...
's The Jungle
The Jungle
The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by journalist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the novel with the intention of portraying the life of the immigrant in the United States, but readers were more concerned with the large portion of the book pertaining to the corruption of the American meatpacking...
. Proponents of the allegory theory point out that in the second half of the story, Farnham describes a place in the West Indies where the blacks are cultured and sophisticated, and whites are feckless and shiftless, and that Heinlein then plays out a traditional slave narrative with Farnham as the narrator. From this point of view, the story is not about Africans and Caucasians, but rather about masters and slaves, regardless of race. It is also interesting to note Farnham's second in command was not his son, but their black domestic servant. This servant, Joseph, was also going to college to become an accountant, and was also described as the best bridge player of the group.